Long Time Coming
by dragonflybeach
Summary: Sam Winchester has dreaded and longed for this moment for six years. Dean just found the necklace in his pocket. (warning for season 11 spoilers)
Sam Winchester had dreaded and longed for this moment for six years.

He wasn't even sure exactly how it happened.

One minute he was dying on the floor, choking on lungs full of suffocating fog and veins full of black goo, stepping out of his body and looking around for Billie.

The next, he was back inside himself, sucking great breaths of fresh air, while Dean stared in shock at the necklace in his hand.

Sam had thought many times about what he would say when it happened, but every one of those carefully rehearsed speeches fled his mind at the moment.

Grabbing the necklace out of the trashcan had been as instinctual as breathing. He could have no more left that necklace than he could have left _Dean_ in that room.

It had been in Sam's pocket for weeks, so certain he was that at some point Dean would say that throwing it away had been a mistake, that Dean would wish for it back.

Those words never came.

The day Sam and Cas broke into the motel room to stop Dean from saying yes to Michael, the necklace had been in Sam's pocket, in his hand even, almost pulled out and given back.

But Dean had been so hopeless, so despondent, so angry, that Sam couldn't be sure that Dean wouldn't have thrown the necklace away again, or throw it back at Sam and make fun of him for holding onto a cheap trinket that meant nothing. That, on top of everything else going on, would have been more than Sam could bear.

So the necklace stayed in his pocket that day, and for the next few weeks.

The last thing he did at Bobby's house before he said yes to Lucifer was to hide the necklace in the panic room, and leave a letter for Bobby to find later telling him to give the necklace back to Dean.

Dean had taken off to Cicero and wouldn't answer Bobby's calls, so Sam made it back to find Bobby still had the necklace.

Sam had taken the necklace back and kept it rolled up in a clean sock in the bottom of his duffle for reasons he didn't understand any more than he understood why he kept driving to Indiana to spy on a brother he didn't even speak to.

Then Dean was back and Bobby urged Sam to give his brother the necklace. Sam told Bobby that Dean didn't deserve it, and that was the moment Bobby knew something was seriously wrong with Sam.

Sam got his soul back, but not his relationship with his brother. He was a screw-up, a nut case that had to be watched and coddled to make sure he didn't scratch the wall or go full metal jacket or feed innocent people to giant spiders _(again)_ or something. He hid the necklace in varying places - sewn into the lining of his jacket, taped to the underside of the car seat, inside a box of organic raisins - making sure it was always close, but not where Dean would find it and make fun of him.

His greatest fear when they met the Leviathan duplicates of themselves was that one of them would spill the truth to Dean. Instead the imposter revealed another secret, one that made Sam consider actually throwing away the necklace for the first time.

Then Dean was gone again. Sam hung the necklace around his own neck and set out to drive the car off an embankment. Instead, he hit a dog and set off a whole new chain of events for Dean to bitch about when he came back.

They moved into the bunker. Everyone got his own room, and Sam's had a wooden box under the bed that was perfect to hide things in, things like family pictures and the silly magnet Jess bought him at the gas station outside Yosemite and Dean's necklace.

He was thankful for the box during the trials, as several times Dean had ended up helping him undress when Sam passed out or was about to. Sam wasn't sure how Dean hadn't found the necklace twice.

Still, on days when he felt the worst, Sam kept the necklace in his pocket, in his boot, somewhere on him, holding onto it as a sick child would clutch a favorite blankie.

Before they left to go cure Crowley, to finish the third trial and slam the gates of Hell, Sam left the box on top of his dresser, honestly not expecting to come back.

After the trials, Sam and Dean worked a case involving a pair of vengeful spirits who were brothers. After they salted and burned the corpses, Dean told Sam he wished he had never gotten rid of his necklace. When they went home to the bunker, Sam brought the necklace out of the box andDean accepted it gratefully, with tears in his eyes.

Except that it didn't really happen, Sam discovered later. It was all in his head, one of a series of illusions to keep him quiet and content while the angel Dean had given free rein over Sam's physical body wreaked havoc.

The necklace stayed in the box for a very long time after that.

It was in Sam's pocket the whole time he tracked his brother the demon, with the thought in the back of his head that maybe, just maybe, it would trigger something in Dean the way all the memories in the Impala had helped Sam overcome Lucifer.

But when the time came, it stayed in Sam's pocket, the fear that Dean would laugh or mock him, or worst of all, just _not care_ overwhelming any hope of what good the necklace could do.

The schoolgirls doing the musical version of Supernatural called Dean out on throwing away the necklace. They even _named_ the thing, called it the Samulet, which made Sam smile. Dean hung their lumpy, lopsided clay version on the rear view mirror, and Sam waited for him to say anything, just one word even, about how he regretted no longer having the original.

But Dean didn't say it, so Sam's fears won again and the necklace stayed put away.

When Dean called him to come say goodbye, Sam brought the necklace. He showed Dean pictures, but the necklace, his ace in the hole, stayed hidden. He knew Dean would find it in his pocket after Sam was dead.

Except that Sam didn't die that day, Death did, which was the most insane thing Sam had ever said out loud, and they ended up running for their lives, once more.

Sam took to carrying the necklace all the time again.

He wasn't sure why, wasn't sure what he was hoping for, whether even the necklace would mean anything to Dean when Amara had him in her thrall.

But it stayed in his pocket and sometimes Sam's thumb was green after a long car trip, having rubbed the pendant's face for hours.

The long shot case Sam had a hunch about turned out not only to be "their kinda thing" when they got to Idaho, but also had Amara written all over it. The little voice that he desperately told himself did NOT sound like Lucifer whispered to him how this might be the day Dean left him behind forever.

Of course it all went to hell with the deputy's husband dead and her appearance in town and a literal avalanche of killing mist rolling down the mountain.

Sam thought it was somehow anti-climactic that he and Dean were going to die on the floor of a police station, not in a hail of gunfire, but choking on fog.

He opened his eyes to find his brother holding the necklace, shock evident on his face.

There were ten thousand things Sam wanted to say in that moment, but none of them came out of his mouth.

Because the damned thing was _glowing,_ so Dean followed the glow, and Sam followed Dean.

They walked out into the street, where the mist was gone, the dead were literally rising, and the deputy's husband who had his face blown off with a shotgun threw his arms around her.

The words didn't get said because apparently God, _The_ God, was standing in front of them wearing Chuck Shurley's meatsuit, and he said they needed to talk.


End file.
